What came first?

[ajpirc]

So the Catholic Church was established by Christ in about 32 AD. I also hear that Christianity wasn’t formed until about 100 years later after the Church split from Judaism. Did the Church come before Christianity?

Does this mean that the Catholic Church was once Jewish?

Was Christianity established by the Jewish Catholic Church and not Christ?

 

[ConstantineTG]

100AD? Followers of Christ were first called Christians in Antioch and this was at the time of the Apostles. Obviously at the latter part of the Epistles of the Apostles and in the Acts, you’d see that they already have a number of gentile converts. Although early on the Apostles did go to the temple on Sabbath, then celebrated the Day of the Lord the following day which is a Sunday.

 

[laszlo]

So the Catholic Church was established by Christ in about 32 AD. I also hear that Christianity wasn’t formed until about 100 years later after the Church split from Judaism. Did the Church come before Christianity?

Does this mean that the Catholic Church was once Jewish?

Was Christianity established by the Jewish Catholic Church and not Christ?

If you read the Acts of Apostles, the letters of Paul, and the Apocalipse, expanded by the tradition, here is the chronology:

• around 33 AD : Jesus is crucified, dies, risen ascends to heaven, send the Holy Spirit, 5000 Jews are baptized
• around 36 AD: deacon Stephen is stoned, Apostle flee around Judea and convert many Jews; Matthew writes the Logia: the teachings of Jesus; Peter baptizes Cornelius the first gentile Christian; Saul converts to Paul
• around 39 AD: first journey of Paul and Barnabas, they baptize many gentiles
• around 42 AD: James the elder is beheaded, Peter flees to Antioch then Rome, baptizes many, Mark writes his Gospel
• around 49 AD: fist council in Jerusalem clearly distinguishes the Christianity from the Judaism: gentiles are not bound by the Judaic Law; Claudius expels the Jews and Christians from Rome
• fifties: St Paul’s missionary journeys increase the number of the gentile Christian to the multiple of the Jewish Christians; non converted Jews keep persecuting the Christians also Paul; Paul is sent to Rome, he is there in captivity for two years, leaves for Spain
• around 65 AD: James the younger is martyred in Jerusalem, Christian Jews flew from Jerusalem to Pella
• around 67 AD: Peter and Paul are martyred in Rome
• 70 AD: Titus destroys the second Temple, exterminates the Jews in Jerusalem (before that they repent)
• Book of Apocalypse (either under Nero or Domitian) describes a Christianity entirely distinguished from the Judaism

Moral: Jesus was Jewish, the Apostles were Jewish (all including Paul) but the Christianity was persecuted by the majority of the Jews from the beginning, and became officially gentile in AD 49 (Council of Jerusalem Acts 15). Matt 28:19-20 explicitly declares a gentile Christianity

 

[TimothyH]

Scripture records that there were about 120 people in the upper room at the time of Pentacost.

When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. During those days Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers (there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons in the one place). (Acts 1:13-15)
One hundred twenty was the number of people required to start a new city. If you wanted to go off to start your own city with its own synagogue, you had to have 120 people willing to do so. You could not start a new Church unless you had 120 people.

Scripture is specific in mentioning that 120 people were present and the reference would have been clear to first century Jews who read the passage. It was clearly a reference to starting a new Church. All 120 present at Pentacost were Jews who believed that Christ was the Messiah.

I note with great joy that the author mentioned the names of the leaders of that Church and the fact that the Blessed Virgin was with them at the very start of the Church.

-Tim-